Sen. Eric Schmitt: FBI and DOJ Corruption, and How Politicized Judges Are Undermining America

26:03It was, you know, it was Hunter Biden laptop. It was certainly during COVID, any kind of questioning of election results or whatever. I mean, all this stuff was on the table. And what they did was, is they worked, as we took the deficit, you know, this sort of plays out. but Jen Psaki's at the podium, if you recall, saying, we're flagging things that we find offensive for Facebook. Joe Biden is threatening to take away Section 230 protections. What's Section 230 protections? Those are basically, in the 1990s when the internet becomes a thing in the Telecommunications Act, they say that these are platforms that can't be sued, unlike publishers who can be sued.

26:42Publishers are supposed to be more arbiters of what you can say. It's why CNN gets sued by President Trump for false things. But like Twitter, Facebook, those are considered platforms. They're immune from lawsuits. So Joe Biden starts threatening Section 230 protections. They start threatening investigations. So if someone libels you on social media, you can sue the person, but you cannot sue the company that hosted it. Whereas if someone libels you in a newspaper or television channel, you can sue the newspaper or television channel. That's right. And so Section 230 protection is a multi-billion dollar sort of subsidy in some ways.

27:16Now, I happen to think, look, if you're actually having this platform where people can express their point of view, that's a great thing. Amen. But that's not what was happening, right? Through immense pressure from the government, they were censoring all sorts of things. How do they do that? How does the president or his staff exert pressure on, say, Facebook or Google or Twitter? So they had direct lines of communication. They had a secret portal where executives from these social media companies could communicate directly with high ranking White House officials. Rob Faraday, who was the deputy communications guy in the Biden White House, was in constant communication berating these people, telling them that's not good enough.

27:55You need to do more. Let me assure you this is coming from the highest levels of the administration. Those sorts of things were constantly streaming at the at the social media companies. And then you also had, as we took the deposition in that case of people from the CDC, they literally, the CDC, were just giving them lines that they should censor. So the government is saying, censor these exact phrases, right? That is exactly what they're giving this off to the social media companies. If this is uttered, we want you to silence these people, you want to de-platform these people, you want me to downgrade, throttle these sort of posts.

28:33um we had um the deposition is that illegal no it's not legal so if it's illegal then that by definition means it's a crime and aren't crimes supposed to be punished yes they should be absolutely um but we you know we sued the government um to show censorship a lot of social media companies had been sued before in other cases um but those ended up in the northern district of california never to be seen again what was unique about our case the missouri versus Biden case, we sued, you know, White House officials. We named them, you know, personally, we named all these agencies and we got to take their depositions.

29:11CISA, which is an agency I know you're familiar with, but maybe in your audience, probably of all audiences would know, is the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Administration, Security Administration. Their job, reportedly, was to make sure that our infrastructure is resilient against cyber attacks. They were very much involved in something called the Election Integrity Project, where they outsourced their censorship to Stanford and the University of Washington to flag certain posts that would then be given to social media companies to censor. The CDC was involved with it. CISA was involved with it.

29:51The FBI, of course, played a role with the pre-bunking of the Hunter Biden laptop, which they knew was actually real. They knew it was real. They had it in their possession. And then they pre-bunked it. And then when it came out, they never actually said, when people were asking, is this legitimate? They never actually said, no, we have it. So they were very much a part of this operation to silence millions of American voices. And I think for me, the First Amendment - How many people have been fired at the FBI for that? I don't know the answer to that. Right around zero. Yeah. And this is the kind of accountability - What the hell is that?

30:25Yeah. And that's something that as we talked to, you know, Cash Patel and his confirmation hearings, it's certainly something that we talked about. He's very well aware. I think having somebody like that who was on the other side of it is a good thing, but we certainly need to have more accountability. But these people, it's just the scale of it was immense. And it really wasn't exposed until we filed the lawsuit again. And then when Elon Musk buys Twitter, now X, they did the Twitter files. and you saw even more of it, right? Like how these people were in charge of this stuff is insane. What's interesting from just like a corporate governance point of view, like let's say I'm Mark Zuckerberg, seems pretty liberal, but not maybe a liberal activist.

31:07But you spend four years getting attacked for censorship when, and you never say actually, well, he did ultimately say, but he didn't say for years, I'm only doing this because the Biden people are pushing me to do it. Like these companies were hurt by this. Weren't they? Yeah, I think the Zuckerberg and the Facebook example is really interesting because if you go back in time, if you get in the DeLorean here, a lot of people blamed Facebook for President Trump's election. Remember this? Yes. And I think then in the next election cycle, whether that was sort of internalized or not, Zuckerberg materializes.

31:50So Zuckerberg is funding a lot of the voter turnout, privately funding election operations, which is kind of crazy in 2020. and then gets sort of, you know, whether completely voluntary or steamrolled by threat of investigation is part of then Facebook, very much a part of this censorship regime that existed. And now Zuckerberg seems to be like red pilled, I guess. I don't know. I don't know how much of this is sincere from these big tech companies or it's just because President Trump won. Time will tell. But it does feel like my hope is that censorship is in retreat a little bit now, and that this renaissance you're seeing that you talk about a lot in your show, the First Amendment and free speech and how important that is to the fabric of this country, it really is the beating heart of our constitution, the ability to say things that you find, that you might find incredibly offensive or even dangerous.

32:46Your ability to defend someone else's right to do that is really at the core of this American experiment. And we have to fight for that every, you know, tooth and nail. And so that lawsuit, I mean, And you just think of the time. I was blessed to have a good team. John Sauer was my Solicitor General in Missouri. He's now the Solicitor General of the United States. The first four district judges that have been nominated in Missouri all worked in my office. There's another guy who worked in my office who's now... The first four all worked in your office? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. So I think, again, why that time period was instructive, I think there's a forging that happens in that time of crisis.

33:29And when you come together and you fight the good fight and you come out on the other side, there's a lot of important work to do. Interestingly, also, I think RFK Jr. is a part of that. I mean, he was one of the guys originally censored. Now he's on the inside. and then another guy who was actually a plaintiff in Missouri versus Biden, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who's now the head of NIH. He's on the inside now. So again, I think the Democrats are just, they can't believe this is actually what happened, but the rebels are now kind of, are doing some good things, I think, on the inside. Dr. Bhattacharya was one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which essentially said something so controversial, like there is a thing like natural immunity that can exist for COVID.

34:14They tried to wreck their careers. Anthony Fauci himself tried to wreck their careers. He was a well-accomplished Stanford professor and now he's running NIH. I think there's a lot of great symmetry to all that. But it's just, I mean, I believe in forgiveness and mercy. I think they're essential to our humanity and we should pursue them. But also justice is important too. And why not treat all of these guys like Biden treated the J6 defendants? I don't understand. How is Fauci wandering around Washington still and working at Georgetown and taking the biggest federal pension? And I don't understand that.

34:55Yeah, the Fauci candles, the light has dimmed. The light has dimmed, but... But he's still around. And I will tell you that that day, it's one of the last things I did as attorney general, because I was just elected to the Senate and we had this deposition of Anthony Fauci scheduled. at the NIH headquarters and took the deposition of Anthony Fauci. The security in there was, I mean, only in the White House has I seen security like that. So Fauci walks in, you know, shake hands. Jeff Landry, who was the attorney general from Louisiana, now governor, had a copy of RFK Jr.'s The Real Anthony Fauci out on the table, which I'm sure he did not appreciate.

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38:29And you get in that kind of setting, you get a real sense of a person. And he said, I don't remember, recall like 174 times, which says a lot for a guy who proclaimed to be the science and knew everything. Suddenly he couldn't remember much at all. But when he was confronted with some of the actions early on in COVID, again, I think there's the Czech writer Milan Koderre writes that the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory versus forgetting. right and so i think it's important remember these things very early on um when it was pretty obvious that this came from a chinese lab called the wuhan institute of virology um right like what was the john stewart thing when he confronted uh colbert i mean it's one of the maybe smart few smart things he's ever said it's like maybe it wasn't a bat who made it with a penguin maybe it was this virology lab with the name on it in Wuhan.

39:25But anyway, it was very obvious early on because of the sort of secretive funding. And basically, let's take a step back. In 2014, the United States basically said, we're not going to participate in game-to-function research anymore. It's very dangerous. Basically, hypercharging viruses that can sweep through the world just to find a vaccine that might stop it seems like a bad idea. It sure does. Okay. So we don't do that anymore in this country, but through the EcoHealth Alliance, it's funded. And it's being done in Wuhan, which did not have, by the way, the safety protocols necessary to do this kind of work.

40:02Apparently not. Apparently not. So unleashed on the world. China lies about it. The World Health Organization, which is bought and paid for by the communists in China, they lie about it. And then all of a sudden you have this global pandemic. Fauci knows immediately the problem here. And it could come back to him. And so in the deposition, we find out he sends his chief deputy over to China to see what they're doing with the Chinese government. And there he's a big fan of these lockdowns. Big fan. Comes back and reports back to Fauci. All these lockdowns are really working. And so Fauci then has this idea that that's what he's going to create in the United States.

40:38It's also interesting when he was asked about the efficacy of masks. He was such a proponent that everybody should wear a mask all day long, even when you're outside. a friend of his emails him and says, this is like in April of 2020. Hey, I'm getting on a flight. This COVID thing is a thing. Do I need to wear a mask? He's like, of course not. Masks are totally ineffective. You don't need to wear a mask. So like masks off, right? But it's very telling. And so he, and he meant to undermine anybody who disagreed with him, participated in studies he pretend, or he authorized studies he pretended to have nothing to do with, that this was from a wet market and not from a lab that he knew was a lie.

41:18And you just think of the damage that was done. There's actually the first time that I ever met RFK Jr., I was at a conference in Utah. This is in probably the summer of 2021. And he was familiar with some of the work that I've been doing to push back on COVID tyranny and these excessive regulations. So we had a conversation, he was talking to a few of us, and he reminded me of something that this has been years since I've even thought about something called the Milgram experiment. which was done at Yale in the 1950s or the 1960s where essentially people are brought into this room and there's a guy in a lab coat and a clipboard and tells them that there's somebody on the other side of the wall.

41:55When they get an answer wrong, we need you to flip the switch to give a little pain. And the number of people that would do that, even when there were cries in the other room and maybe even someone dying on the other side, the willingness of some people to continue to do that because of this authority figure in the white coat. It haunted me. When he told me that story, I hadn't thought about it. It haunted me throughout all of this and kind of strengthened my resolve to really push back because in those moments, you need people who are willing to stand up and fight back, right? But yeah, Fauci was sort of, he was heralded as literally some sort of like saint-like figure.

42:33He had candles. And I think some of it was they wanted to make Trump, people were really obsessed with making Trump look bad. The Democrats want to capitalize on this crisis, make them pay, because you also forget Trump was cruising going into that COVID. I mean, he was on his way to winning, I think, decisively in the fall of that year. And they used COVID for everything it was. Fauci was sort of this who undermined President Trump, used this as alternative figure. This whole weird trust the science thing happened. Then, of course, you have the summer of 2020, the summer of love. and you see all these sort of Marxist organizations rally to create ultimate disruption.

43:09And then you have the election. You have Mark Elias out there trying to undermine, you know, all these election integrity measures that have been put in place, even in blue states forever. I mean, just think of the level. All this stuff happening at one time was a crazy time. Like that whole period of time was a crazy time. It's unbelievable. And so that's what you sort of document some of these things that in Missouri, for example, we beat back all three of Mark Elias' lawsuits to weaken our election integrity laws, but he was successful other places. And so you just had the whole of kind of the left coming for all the things that we care about.

43:42Borders, free speech, freedom of movement, all these sorts of things that you kind of take for granted were up for grabs. When you talked to Fauci, when you deposed him for eight hours, you said? Yeah. Did you get the feeling he was lying? Is he a good liar? He's pretty, yeah, and he's a good witness. I'll give him that. He was a good man. This isn't his first rodeo. He's been in front of Congress. Oh, I know, yeah. He's very smooth. But there's just too many inconsistencies. Did he seem, I mean, short of like a sociopath, most people when confronted with inconsistencies in their story get uncomfortable.

44:16And a deposition is a place where you definitely confront people. The only time, yeah, the only time he got really uncomfortable, I would say, is when we continued to question him, his authority. He didn't like that. Yeah. Well, you said this. Now, wait a minute. Did you change your mind on this, Doc? You know, you get to that kind of line of questioning. He didn't like people. he's not used to that he wasn't used at all and by the way i also think another telling moment of that deposition was after the lunch break we came back and the court reporter sneezed and he looked at her and asked her to put a mask on asked her if she had an upper respiratory virus she had covid will you put a mask on she put a mask on i mean this is by the way november of 2022 this isn't like march of 2020 and this is the guy that was in charge of our nation's health.

44:59Like, so, but I think it, COVID became a time where these weird, like, masks became like a, it was the ultimate virtue signal, almost like having the stupid sign in this house, we believe out in your front lawn thing, right? It became like a way of distinguishing people who were, who were a problem. The othering that happened in our society is really dangerous. And I think, you know, families and friendships were destroyed over all this. That's the kind of power this little guy wielded. And he's not been held to account yet. What do you think the real story was? Like, where did COVID come from?

45:37We assume it came from the lab. Do we think it was intentional or unintentional in its release? When do we think the Chinese knew it was circulating among the population? And to what extent was it a joint creation of the U.S. and China? Well, it's in the book, actually. The last line of defense. I feel a little awkward doing that. I've never actually done it. No, no, no. But it's actually, so the first chapters really kind of go back in time because I think to give context for all the other crazy things we had to push back against, it was really important to go back to that moment of when this thing first happened and remember that there was like police tape around kids' playgrounds.

46:16They were bulldozing skate parks on beaches. Like the level of insanity that took hold, it really is wild. And hopefully we never experienced that again, but I think it's important to document those excesses and what people were willing to do to hold on and aggregate and exercise power. I mean, people who literally would, county executives and mayors were telling people that you could live your life today or not. Like it's insane what was going on. But really my first, and actually on your show announced the lawsuit, we sued China. We sued China in April of 2020 for unleashing this pandemic on the world.

46:51And I think, and ultimately, there's a judgment out there for$24 billion that Missouri has that can go, by the way, seize farmland now. So my successor, Andrew Bailey, is going to have that opportunity, and I think he'll do it. But anyway, I think through our research through public, and then, of course, we wanted to get to discovery, which is why we filed the lawsuit, was that in November and December of 2019, patient zero enters the hospital this is how i see it and patient zero likely came from that lab so that and of course you know you get to you know different strains down the down the line it's left less lethal as any virus is but initially um that's where it happened it happened in Wuhan and it came from the lab.

47:40China, a very closed society with communist dictators who have concentration camps, wanted to deny its existence for a while. But within, you know, by December, Dr. Li, I think is his name, Dr. Li was on WeChat and said, this is what's happening. Like, this is a virus that came out of a lab and people are dying. He had to recant that, of course, and then mysteriously died a couple months later. But it was kind of this whistleblower. And the Chinese people actually celebrated this guy for blowing the whistle. So anyway, so China discovers that this is a thing. It's a very lethal and widespread virus.

48:24Do you believe the release was accidental? I don't believe it was on purpose. I mean, it could be, but I don't think so. I think it got out accidentally. But the cover-up then is almost worse than the crime, of course, right? Because then, and one of the problems with China is they want to be considered one of these countries on the world stage, but then doesn't do the things that like a country would do to kind of notify everybody. So what they do then is they close all the flights, internal flights in China in and out of Wuhan, but they don't stop the international flights, interestingly. So you can still fly internationally in and out of Wuhan, but you can't fly within China out of Wuhan.

49:00they immediately become not they they were the largest net exporter of pp ppe personal protective equipment they they immediately become the biggest net importer of ppe so they know something's going down and this is in like january ish and then finally they kind of have to with the world health organization sort of holding their hand let the world know that this is out there and then the story of course is well this wasn't something we created this came from a bat mating with a penguin or whatever the example was or some wet market theory. And then what's really interesting is President Trump takes the action you would want him to take.

49:39He closes flights coming in and out of China, right? I remember that. Remember that? That outbreak of racism. Yeah, like all of a sudden that was a xenophobic act. You know what I mean? And then Nancy Pelosi is on the streets of San Francisco in Chinatown saying everything's fine here. Come here. This is fine. Like, it was this Trump derangement syndrome where even if it was the right thing to do, people would take the opposite point of view. Right? So he shuts down the flights because he understands that there's a problem. But by this point, you said Fauci knows that the virus came from that lab.

50:21Yeah. To what extent was Fauci implicated in the creation of the virus? Do we know? Well, by all accounts, he wanted the gain-of-function research to continue. And it was funded through an NGO, imagine that, the EcoHealth Alliance. Yes. So the money still flowed, but no one would ever be able to really track it, right? Can we say definitively that U.S. tax dollars helped create COVID? I believe that. I mean, whatever you think of COVID, a lot of people did die of it. Yeah. Millions of people died of it, I think. Yeah, one of the great sense, Tucker, is that there was never any distinguishing between a super vulnerable elderly person with comorbidities.

51:03There's a different way of dealing with that scenario than a five-year-old healthy kid. Of course. No, of course. And it's also, it would be good during a pandemic to have treatment for your population. Right. Not discourage treatment. Of course, all true. I guess I just want to linger on the fact, you just endorsed it, that U.S. tax dollars were used to help create this virus that killed millions of people. and I feel like the fact that no one's been held accountable there is a what I mean I don't know why uh that's a good question I think that there's there ought to be um I think that there ought to be hearings I think Fauci should be at least at least brought before Congress at this point right at least um why hasn't he been I don't know yeah I don't not on the committee I certainly would love to see that happen.

51:52And I think that there ought to be accountability and this shouldn't go away. Do you think that too many people are implicated in it? Maybe. It feels to me like this was very much a sort of an inside operation because the government, well, in fairness, the United States government said we don't want to do gain-of-function research anymore. But we did through the funding that flowed through the EcoHealth Alliance, right? That's how everything works. They can't do censorship, so they outsource it. Correct. They can't assassinate people, so they outsource it. I mean, everything is. Well, and think about what we just went through, and I don't want to go back to this, but look at this USAID stuff, right?

52:37Like, I just led the rescissions package to claw back 8 billion plus of that, which is like the ridiculous stuff like transgender sex surgeries in Guatemala and DEI trainings in Burma and Sesame Street in Iraq, all this ridiculous stuff that the American people are rightly pissed off about. There's no line item in the budget for that. Like there's no line item for that. It's just the money goes to this Institute for Peace or all these BS names that exist out there and they do a bunch of crazy stuff. And then you have to kind of go on the backend and pull it back. And my hope is that when you have an administration like the one we have now, and I do think they're kind of getting a handle on this, they paused a lot of the funding.

53:17They've eliminated USAID altogether. They're bringing it into the State Department. That's a good, that's progress. Like that's a good thing to do. But you got to stay vigilant on this because there's a lot of people in the administrative state that think they know better. They're the expert and they don't care what a senator or congressman or even what the people believe or think. They know better. And that's the kind of thing that has to be ultimately like disrupted and dismantled completely. And that's one of the reasons why I think my experience as AG now in the Senate, that's my focus. like I don't you know that that's what I want to do I want to get rid of all that stuff that people hate back home um so but anyway yeah I think that uh so so he sends his deputy over there he's a big fan of lockdowns um comes back and and um begins to undermine President Trump um you know when when President Trump talks about this having come from a lab um you know he's already a xenophobe because he's restricted travel.

54:13Now he says it's from a lab. That's ridiculous. Everybody piles on about that. And by the way, it's true. So I think that this combination of Trump derangement syndrome and this obsession with power and the left, I mean, they couldn't have believed their luck to have a pandemic that they could move all the things that they wanted to move on. Sure. And I mean, it certainly reduced the United States relative to China on many levels, but economically, most obviously. It really gravely damaged the U.S. economy and, you know, we're still dealing with it. But I guess I just can't get past this question of how did the virus come to be and who paid for it?

54:55And the downstream effects are history changing and terrible for the United States and terrible for the families, those who were killed, etc., etc. But like somebody did that. Yeah. And I don't understand how Republicans can control all three branches and we don't have an answer. Yeah. I think ultimately the Department of Justice should take a look at this stuff as they should on the Russia hoax. I think there's a lot of, there's a lot, it's a target rich environment. Let's just put it that way. I think of the, the, the places that they could go. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. It's just, it's just, it feels like since it's been five years that we're going to get to a point where it's like, we're never going to.

55:35No, I know. Right. Which is, by the way, one of the reasons we filed that lawsuit was it felt like if you could get into discovery phase, which again, you're suing a foreign country, we were able to slide into one of the exceptions. You know, there's the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally means you can't sue foreign countries. But we, I think one of the clever things we did here is we said, no, this falls into the commercial activity exception to that. Meaning if you're going to be controlling hospital systems over there and you're going to be controlling PPE, the flow of it, you fall into one of these exceptions and the judge agreed.

56:07But I think the other thing for me that became clear is the epicenter of the global supply chain network runs through China, right? That became very obvious. And so like for me, my son has epilepsy, right? He relies on multiple seizure medications every day to stay alive. And it It occurred to me, well, you know, 90 % of our pharmaceuticals, 80 % of our pharmaceuticals come from somewhere else, mostly China. The raw materials for it. Including the seizure meds? Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, wow. So think about it. What if China just decides to stop producing that stuff or poison that stuff? one of the reasons why I'm a big proponent and believe I think it's good for our economy because we got onshore a lot of the stuff that was 30 years ago sent to be done somewhere else to take that specific example so the seizure medications for epilepsy including the ones your son takes they're not made in the United States?

57:07no they're sourced I mean all the source materials for the most part not just anti-epileptic seizure meds but most things that people take on a daily basis are derived from China Yeah, but not just vitamin C or even, you know, but drugs that we will literally die if you don't have them. Those would seem like priorities. How hard would it be to have those drugs specifically made in the U.S.? Well, I think President Trump has identified this as a priority. It's certainly something we've talked about. I think for whatever reason, that stuff went somewhere else like so many other things. But that has to be brought back home.

57:42at a minimum, like countries that aren't communist regimes that want to, you know, throw people in concentration camps and have global dominance. Right. So, but we should do that stuff here. It's a national security issue. Like, by the way, the critical minerals that we rely on to make fighter jets and iPhones, like this stuff, we got to bring that stuff back home. And I think you're seeing that play out in some of the trade deals and the investment that's happening now. But yeah, but that occurred to me. And I also think one of the wake up calls here, which everybody kind of had a breaking point with all this, mine was probably the realization of how reliant we were on China for things.

58:22And one of the reasons why we moved forward on the lawsuit, but also if you recall, Tucker, this letter that over a thousand public health officials signed during the George Floyd protests, remember this, they're saying everybody had to stay home. Remember, this was you couldn't people were protesting anything else. They had to stay home. But if you're going to attend a Black Lives Matter protest, the rules didn't apply to you anymore. I think for members of the Democratic Party's militia. Yeah. The youth wing. Yeah. Like that was like, I think for a lot of people that I've talked to who weren't like in the thick of it, they actually have lives and families that are outside of this stuff.

58:57when they saw that that you got a license to go out and protest quote-unquote systemic racism you could go do that but you couldn't protest something else that like at that point it was very obvious what this whole thing was about and you saw i think the entire apparatus of the democrat party these ngos bricks are being delivered by mysteriously by you know organizations when the sunset. I mean, all this stuff was meant to sort of create the kind of untethering that's necessary for something much bigger. And they were all in on that. I just worry that people are losing all confidence in the system.

59:37And when people I know who are moderate and sensible, well-educated, smart, you know, will believe anything at this point, just absolutely anything. And the reason they'll believe anything is because so many things they believed in turned out not to be true. and there was zero accountability and has been zero accountability for really anything other than January 6th that I'm aware of. And I just wonder if the people in, you know, making the laws and crafting the regulation in Washington understand that the whole system at some point becomes at risk because the population's like, I don't believe anything.

1:00:11Right. Well, I agree with you. And one of the reasons why when President Trump was creating his cabinet and going through the confirmation process. He has put together a team. And by the way, this isn't going to happen overnight. I think this confidence that you're talking about, this lack of lost confidence, lack of confidence in institutions is a real thing. And by the way, in many ways, rightfully so, right? When you have law enforcement agencies that are weaponized, not just against their chief political rival, but against the American people, there should be a loss of confidence. But what comes next is, how do you regain the confidence?

1:00:50It has to be accountability, right? And so that's what needs to happen. Not vengeance or revenge. I don't think that's a good thing at all. And by the way, not to do the same thing that they did to target a political opponent because of the political opponent, but rather to say, you did something that was terrible for our country, which basically relies on self-governance and accountability. I mean, at the end of the day, right? That's the ultimate thing. People in Missouri can send me there. They can send me home. They can send me back. there's some level of accountability that comes with our, with the way our constitutional republic.

1:01:22But when you get to all this other stuff that's below that, which is why the administrative state is so dangerous because they're not accountable to anybody. They know it. And you have to rein that in and disrupt it and dismantle it in many ways. And again, I think part of what drove me to uncover a lot of the things as AG was that, and now in this new role, it's to help finish that job. But you really do need an administration that believes that too. And I don't think we've had, I can't think of any administration in the last hundred years that has invested in rooting that out as this one. I agree.

1:01:55I just, you know, there's a lot of emphasis on, you know, people who are criticizing BB on college campuses and everything, which is fine. But I'm getting to the point, and I know a lot of the people, you know, run DOJ and I really like them and think they're decent people. And I agree with them on most things. However, like the BLM riots, COVID, censorship, like you got to get to the bottom of this stuff. Epstein, sorry to say it. I know no one wants to hear it, but it's just not because I care that much about Epstein. It's like the perception, however, that some people are above the law is the most corrosive possible perception in any society.

1:02:37Yeah, no, I agree. And I think you just take this Russia gate stuff. Here's another great example. I think, you know... And it's so corrosive is the right word of how it infected so many aspects of law enforcement. I mean, think about it all the time that the FBI is spending trying to protect Hunter Biden and get Trump out of office or going after parents or Catholics. Like the FBI is supposed to go after the bad guys, right? Like help clean up the streets in Washington, D.C. or in St. Louis or in New York or wherever. Like, think of all the resources pulled away to go do all this other bullshit that the Biden administration wanted to do.

1:03:22It really is a tragedy. And so I do think that there's some opportunities coming up for the Justice Department to go do that. And the Russiagate thing is front and center. Just think of the idea that Hillary Clinton, who, by the way, was working with the George Soros organization to come up with this ridiculous theory to deflect from her emails. right that her email scandal they needed something on trump and they concocted this thing out of thin air that he was some russian asset or had some was in bed with putin on stuff and then they sold that to the intelligence agencies that bought it and then convinced the president of the united states barack obama to spy on a the guy who's running for president who happened to be republican and then they continue to lie about and still by the way continue to lie about it to this day about their role in undermining, not just like our system of like that two people are running against each other and the American people get to decide.

1:04:18They did everything for a five-year period to undermine his, not just his agenda, but his presidency. And then the same group of people then are weaponized and they go get Jack Smith, who's like everybody knows in the prosecutor world is just like a hired gun. Like you go, you put, you make him special counsel when it's like, show me the man, I'll show you the crime. Soviet style justice. That's exactly what that was. And it was happening in this country. And they're down in Mar-a-Lago going through the first lady's underwear drawer trying to find probably stuff related to Crossfire Hurricane, probably, and maybe some other stuff.

1:04:56But it was just about settling political scores. With guns. With guns. And then you have Fannie Willis' deputy meeting with the White House counsel. Why is a state prosecutor in Georgia meeting with the White House counsel's office? Why would they be doing that? Why would the number three person from DOJ go to the New York District Attorney's Office to help out with the prosecution of President Trump? Why is all this happening? The minute President Trump's original sin to them was that he ran at all, that he came down the escalator. Yes. And he was such a disruptive force that they were willing to throw, to save democracy, they were willing to destroy democracy.

1:05:37And so now, and the reason why I feel committed with the job I had, getting back to what job would you rather have, I think it's important to have people in the United States Senate and Congress who want to see this project through, that they want accountability restored. They want people to actually not believe their government is weaponized against them. Like, it's a tall task given the sins of the last eight years, but it's important for this republic to last and to stand and for our kids and grandkids. I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know, you've got more relevant law enforcement experience than a lot of people running DOJ.

1:06:11Sorry to say that, but it's true. I hope that you're in contact. I won't even ask you, put you in an uncomfortable position, but I hope that you're in contact with them. And I hope that you will convey the following message. To the extent that you don't bring to light the truth and affect justice, people start to think, well, maybe you're in league with the bad guys, too. I mean, I don't, you know, which I think is unfair. and I like the attorney general and I like the FBI director and LaBungino and all that. But like, I think it's fair to ask at a certain point, like, why aren't you prosecuting anybody for any of this stuff?

1:06:43And what's the answer? Well, we're really busy. Really? Are you really that busy? You know what I mean? And maybe you're in on it too. And I don't think they are in on it. I don't think they're bad people. I'm not alleging that. But a lot of people will start to think that very soon unless they act. And I hope you will pass on that message. I will. And I think what people are looking for is is action. There's no doubt. Yeah. Yeah. Is it hard to, I mean, you would know since you've been involved in it all, but just as a process matter, is it hard to say, you know, we know that Clapper and Brennan were involved in illegal activities.

1:07:16Let's get an indictment. Like how hard is that? Well, yeah. I mean, I think the issue is that it's possible some of the statute of limitations may have run on a lot of the crimes. However, not necessarily on a conspiracy, on an ongoing conspiracy. And there's also no presidential candidate immunity. Hillary Clinton doesn't have immunity. Now, Barack Obama likely does, ironically because of the U.S. versus Trump case where John Sauer, who's now the Solicitor General, who's my Solicitor General, argued successfully before the Supreme Court that official acts, you know, you can't have ongoing. You know, so there is such a thing as presidential immunity that was established.

1:07:54So Barack Obama may have presidential immunity while he was in office. I don't know if he engaged in activities after he was out of office. Who knows? Certainly, James Comey doesn't have immunity. Clapper doesn't have immunity. Brennan doesn't have immunity. So I think this is going to go where the facts lead. And I think that the most likely, if there was something to pursue, it's likely an ongoing conspiracy to defraud the American people. And that is a crime. So we'll see. But there can and probably should be, let me say, definitely should be indictments. Dan Bongino, who's taking a lot of crap for the Epstein thing, but I can verify since I know him well, is a good man, decent man.

1:08:39But he said in public and also in private that the FBI is way more corrupt than he had any sense of it. He didn't know. He said that. And how hard is it? Why is it so hard to clean up the FBI? um well i guess you could say um you kind of need to know the what is the no knowns no unknowns and unknown uh i think you gotta figure out who the people are um but nobody's got a right to be a insubordinate fbi uh agent like you don't like they have no authority apart from the president's authority and the president's authority derives from elections right because it's authority conferred by the people as expressed by voting.

1:09:23It's also interesting, too. They have no authority at all. Right. Well, take the Civil Rights Division. I mean, Dylan, I think, is doing a great job. She, a number of those, and that perhaps was maybe the most corrupt division out there, the Civil Rights Division, right? She's my former lawyer, and I can say she's tough. Yeah, she's tough. And I think there's a lot that we're going to see from, I just had a hearing, I chair the subcommittee on the Constitution of the Judiciary Committee. We just had her come in and say, hey, what are you thinking about doing? Like, what are the things that are on your list of things to do?

1:09:56I think she's, obviously, universities have been a topic of conversation. But I also think in corporate America, they ought to be ready. Because this discriminatory DEI stuff flies in the face of federal law. The Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s were meant to protect people from racial discrimination. Everyone. And there are people being racially discriminated against right now. and and by the way these struggle sessions that exist like coca-cola you know would have a seminar you know saying basically from the moderator how can you be less white i mean this is insanity how can you be less black how can you be less jewish how can you be less hispanic like what the hell is going on in it by the way our military i think i'm on the armed services committee we would ask i would ask questions all the time we would try to and that's went a little underground once it was exposed.

1:10:46But this idea of dividing the room, our military is this great, supposed to be this great meritocracy. Anybody from any background can go serve. You can have a ticker tape parade in New York City as being a war hero. It doesn't matter where you came from, what your race is. We celebrate that. This idea of dividing the room by race and who's the oppressor and who's the oppressed is insane. But I think that Civil Rights Division is a good example. I think they're going to pursue some things that prior regimes didn't pursue. And I think that will have an important effect on behavior as well. You do think that?

1:11:15I do. Do you have confidence in the Attorney General? Yeah, listen, I think President Trump's put a good team around him and I have a ton of respect for Pam Bondi. I do. What do you make of the Epstein thing? I think that more needs to be done on transparency. There's no doubt about it. I think any of the credible information that can come out should come out. I will also say

1:11:40the Southern District of New York had those files. James Comey's daughter was the lawyer handling this in the Southern District of New York. Weird how that works. Yeah. So I don't know what that means. But I do think that more transparency would be a good thing. You often hear, I mean, now you're in a position to receive classified information. I'm sure you have meetings in the fabled SCIF from time to time. time. We often hear, you know, we can't tell you that for reasons of national security, reasons of privacy, whatever, all these different reasons. We have more than a billion classified federal documents.

1:12:20Like, why? Yeah, there should be a, I agree with you, and I've heard you talk about this before. There's just way too much stuff that's hidden behind what's so-called classified. A lot of that stuff should never be classified in the first place. It's sort of a great way to never have to have transparency with the American people. And by the way, contributes to this lack of trust that you're talking about. I think the more information you can get out there, the better. And by the way, I do find it hilarious. We have these, sometimes we have these all-senator briefings. Yeah. And it's all, nothing comes of it.

1:12:58There's nothing new that wasn't already leaked by somebody in the Pentagon to the New York Times the day before. Now, some of these you can get in there and ask on a one, by the way, not necessarily the top level person, but somebody that's actually doing the work. You can ask some some questions in a much more private setting. But some of this stuff is just a way to hide behind. Interestingly, Chris Wray once mentioned that we can't gather information the same way we did prior to the lawsuit. He was referencing Missouri versus Biden because the FBI was very much a part of the censorship regime where they were flagging stuff and calling it Russian disinformation and working with the big tech companies.

1:13:34And he was sort of annoyed that his practices were being curtailed because the court said you can't do that anymore. It's very, for me, having been the guy that filed it and then now sitting when he said that was really an interesting turn of events. How many senators are former AGs? um there are probably five on the on the republican side there's maybe four there's probably about the same on the maybe on the democrats how much is spent on your average senate race oh um i mean i would imagine it ranges from 20 million to then you get into yeah right hundreds like 200 million dollars in montana where there's like literally one of the least populated states, a very important state, but was important for them to take the majority.

1:14:25How about just pay off everyone's mortgage and call it a day? It might have been cheaper. So, and then, but the AG race is, I mean, this is a long way of making a short point, which is, an AG seems like every bit as important a job as being a U.S. center. It's a very important job. For sure. Yeah. And I think the rest of us are just waking up to that kind of, how much is spent on those races? Oh, a fraction of that. Right. A fraction of that. And then you get into races where, you know, you've got, you know, red states or blue states, but red states. And it's really about the primary. And that's even less expensive, right?

1:14:57Someone like Dana Nessel in Michigan, I think, did more damage to the state than that kind of the Botox governor ever thought about doing. Like, Dana Nessel is like a truly poisonous, anti-Christian, dangerous person. That's my read on her anyway. I don't know her. and she kind of gets ignored and everyone beats up on the governor, the hapless governor. Well, what's interesting about that is we kind of took a page. So during COVID, Cuomo had instituted a tip line essentially to tell on your neighbors. And I think Tim Walls did this actually too. Oh, for sure. They had this tip line where you'd snitch.

1:15:34They're all tattletales. Yeah. Like you're outside barbecuing without a mask on and all of a sudden the police shows up. I mean, I think this happened in Minnesota. So we kind of turned it on its face when we sued the 65 school districts in Missouri. We said, we're going to have a tip line not for the suppression of rights, but to vindicate people's rights. We had a tip line of parents reach out to us of what schools were still forcing their kids to wear masks all day long. And I'll tell you, Tucker, in some of the dark, lonely moments of this fight when, you know, now it seems very settled, like that was a terrible thing to be doing to kids.

1:16:04But back then, not everybody, I would get interviewed by reporters locally in Missouri who were still in their cars because they couldn't go in the studio with masks on asking me questions about, you're trying to, you know, sue a school district for not. Why do you want to kill the kids? Right, exactly. Those are the questions that they would be asking. So many kids died of COVID. Right. So the stories we got coming in were just devastating. There was a kid in one school district who, because she refused to take her mask off, was meant to sat on a stage by herself in the cafeteria to eat lunch by herself away from the other kids.

1:16:42We got emails from a parent of a deaf child. So this is just killing my kid. My kid can't pick up language the way that normally picks up language. The extent to which these adults who should have known better were just willing to do all this. It's just, it's terrible. Like it's terrible. And so I think, again, you just never let that happen again. And by the way, these are the same people that say, well, once we have a vaccine, that things will change. That didn't change anything. And by the way, it didn't affect transmissibility, of course. But then you were censored for saying that, even though it was true.

1:17:18So, again, the sins of that era should not be forgotten because we can't let it happen again. Well, they also are the basis of the society we're living in now. It changed everything. It changed people's attitudes toward each other, toward the state, changed the economy, changed the culture up and down, spiked the suicide rate, shortened the life expectancy, increased drug and alcohol addiction exponentially. I mean, like, things fell apart. Yeah. Now, I think the one thing, particularly from there, I think you're seeing this with a lot of younger, especially males, who came up during that era.

1:17:54And by the way, writ large, kids of that generation now that grew up with that are much more conservative than any generation that preceded them because I think they saw what was happening to their social networks, their schooling. and I think it's part of the reason why you're seeing kind of a, especially young men who are also being told that you're the reason why everything is terrible. I would disagree. I don't think they're conservative as much as they're radical. I think they're way more radical than Republicans understand. I think they're really radical. I don't think they're going to vote for Democrats anytime soon, but I mean, I think that their views are so different from your average 75-year-old Republican senator.

1:18:34Yeah, oh, I would agree with that, 100%. Is there an appreciation of that? I don't know that everybody sees that, Tucker. I feel like I try to be a voice for that because, you know, and I ran statewide three times in six years in that era. In Missouri, you get a real sense of kind of what's really going on if you spend the time getting around talking to people. And that's my sense of it, too. So you've been, you've held three elected offices? Yeah. Treasurer, AG, Senator. Well, I was in the state Senate before that, actually. Oh, gosh. Yeah. When I was 31 years old or whatever that was. Wow. Yeah.

1:19:12Yeah, I got into, it's interesting. Everybody has their own path. For me, it wasn't anything I was thinking about. And then my son, Steven, was born. Yes. In 2004 and was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called tuberous sclerosis, which there's tubers that form in different organs, including his brain, which has infected his development. and he has epilepsy seizures nearly every day. But he's nonverbal. Steven will be 21 here in a few days. But seeing him go through that, including a four-hour seizure and being in the ICU for over a week, I kind of went through this process. As a child?

1:19:51Oh yeah, as a two, three-year-old. And he would have them every few months that we would be in the hospital. And the four-hour seizure, they were on the last medication they could give him. He had to wait 20 minutes. And I remember there was like a red digital clock on the wall that had the seconds you know ticking by and had to wait 20 minutes before they could try a new med and he's seizing the whole time and all i could do was be there with him pray jamie had to my wife had to leave the room and i would just pray the whole time and um the last one uh worked they were about ready to induce a coma so we almost lost steven that day but but it's it's something but anyway you go through for me how did you keep your family together like how do with other children.

1:20:31Yeah, then we later had two daughters, Sophia and Olivia were great, but we wanted to have more kids. I think those things, Tucker, you go one of two ways with your faith and your family. And for us, it strengthened our family, my wife and I, and even my faith. I went through a process of discernment. I'm Catholic, was educated by the Jesuits, and there's this process of sort of like trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. and that was an inflection point for me. And I wanted to do more than what I was doing. I made partner in a law firm. That was great. I was building a career and a family, but I felt like there was something more to do.

1:21:08So I was called - Why would that strengthen your faith? It doesn't seem like an obvious response. If you grew up Catholic, you go to Catholic schools and then the tough, really the toughest thing that can ever happen to a man happens to you. And so why wouldn't you say, well, you know, God has abandoned me. There is no God. This is too horrible. Like, why would that strengthen your faith? Um, I think it, it certainly gives you a perspective on what the things you can control and what you can't control. Yes. And so much of, of, I mean, think of the original sin, really, it's just trying to become God, um, in the garden of Eden.

1:21:45And I think that it does, look, there's a mourning that never totally goes away when I go to a baseball game or something like that and see a dad with a son that's about Stephen's age or kids go off to college and do those sorts of things that Stephen will never get to do. Stephen will never be married and have kids. And that's tough as a dad. That's really tough. but I would say that from that I've gained a much greater perspective on the things that are important the things that are real and he's a happy kid and there's when you see him when he sees you or sees me if he were here right now he'd be walking around he'd give you a big hug and that kind of thing but the minute that I see him or wake him up in the morning he's just got this just look of joy on his face and I people have asked me you know, what do you think heaven is like?

1:22:40Heaven is that to me, that second or two where I feel that just intense, unadulterated, unconditional love for my boy times eternity. That must be what it's like, where all this other stuff is not, that's not important, isn't important. And that's the closeness you have with God, your creator forever. And so Stephen has taught me a lot of things. and it was my inspiration to enter all of this and still is. I've heard, I have known parents with a child with Down syndrome say something similar that for all of the, you know, obviously the tragedy and the sadness and the difficulty that there's something about the child that just emanates, radiates joy.

1:23:27I think he's our, Demi and I have talked about, I think he's our little angel that teaches us all the time and I think there's an innocence there with Stephen and our job is to love him and protect him. And there's something, you know, kind of unique about that. So I think for me, it's just going to be, sorry, this is like the, what is it? The Jerry Maguire movie, the Rod Tidwell, Roy Firestone moment where I cry or something. It's all right. No, but I, it's hard to explain, Tucker. It's such a touchstone for me that it's what's really important. And so there's something that also that I try to think about is this indifference.

1:24:19And when I mean my indifference is it's not you don't care about something. It's that whatever, and St. Ignatius Loyola talks about this, whatever comes your way, you make the most of it. And there's a certain freedom that can come from that. Again, that I think Stephen has taught me, but for this experience with Stephen, I don't know that that's how I would view things. And so in that way, it's a blessing, even though it's hard, you know, that sometimes like, you know, when we went to the inauguration, when I got sworn in as the 2000th U.S. Senator, my whole family went. My parents had never been to the Capitol.

1:25:00I had only been there a couple times. I mean, I was in Missouri and we just even, we don't fly. So we drove. We drove from St. Louis to Washington. And looking back on that, like you think, oh man, that's a lot. the ride there with my kids in the backseat and my wife and I listening to music that we listened to in college for the 12 hour drive, that, that was an experience I wouldn't have had, right. Without Steven having the condition that he has. So there's a lot of blessings that I take from it. I think. So you drove 12 hours across the country with three kids and you, you found that a blessing.

1:25:36Yeah. thank god for steven no it does sound ridiculous doesn't it no it sounds wonderful no it sounds wonderful no so if you count it as a blessing then that says something about you so it's perspective i guess but anyway that's a long way of me getting to the answer question which is yes then i i ran for office and then i felt like there was more to do and then um and and so here i am so what'd you think so you said you'd only been when you were sworn into the Capitol a few times, then you're in this famously cohesive, not to say clannish body of a hundred senators. Like, what did you think of it?

1:26:16What's the old line? You get there and the first few months you say, how did I get here? And then after that you say, how did these people get there? No, I have immense respect. I mean, I think I've always, look, I love America and I think our Our founders were genius and inspired, divinely inspired by the system that was created that ultimately this checks and balances, separation of powers, all that was meant to protect individual liberty. They saw the excesses of government. Ironically, a lot of things we're talking about, we fight back against. That the best way to guard it was you had faction versus faction.

1:26:47You had all these things sort of playing off. To guard it, not bestow it. Correct. And our rights don't come from government. They come from God. And the government's job is to protect those rights that we're born with. the ability to speak your mind, the ability to defend yourself, the ability to petition, all these things. So I come at it from that perspective. So I, I, I treat it as such. Like, I think it's a very important role that you play. And I think our system is, is important and designed to protect, um, you know, this very important experiment, but ultimately human dignity and flourishing.

1:27:16And so that's how I come at it. Look, are there, are there things about it that are, that are frustrating? Absolutely. Like my first two years there, um, when Chuck Schumer was in charge. You hear about this world's most deliberative body. The worst thing that I learned is that there isn't as much, like people think Mr. Smith goes to Washington and you're on the floor. There's just that there wasn't a lot of opportunity to be on the floor, to offer amendments, to find unique coalitions that might exist that people wouldn't expect. That didn't happen. And that was frustrating. And I think what is important now that we have the majority is that we have more of those opportunities.

1:27:56When I was very thankful to handle President Trump's rescissions package, I didn't put any limits on amendments. I didn't tell anybody don't offer the amendment or we're gonna box you out. Offer the amendment, let's vote on it. Let's see where people kind of land. So I think that was one observation. The other one is that interestingly in my class that came in, we were elected in 2022, it was very much a generational turnover from the people that we were following in those offices. And, uh, there's a bit of a bonding. I mean, JD and I, vice, vice president Vance, uh, and I, um, became very good friends.

1:28:33Um, we shared a lot of common experiences in life and viewed the world similarly and other people in the class, um, you know, Ted Budd and, and Katie Britt and Pete Ricketts and all, there's a, you don't get to share that life experience with many people. So we go to, go to dinner once a month and talk about like, not legislation you're working on, but like real life stuff about our kids and the things that are important. And so I was lucky, I think that I came in with a group that, that was about the same age and, and had same cultural references and things like that. But the average age of the Senate is, you know, several hundred, 60, uh, um, yes, 67 and a half or something like that.

1:29:12Yes. So, um, you know, and like I play on the congressional baseball team, I'm, you know, the one Senator that starts because, you know, for whatever reason. Which, by the way, that I got to, you know, meet a lot of House members that I would never have met otherwise. I mean, I think people think the House and the Senate are like working together on all this stuff. I mean, you have relationships, but being at a baseball practice at 5.45 in the morning, 4.45 Missouri time, there's a bit of a bonding that can happen with that so you get to know people. And so I just try to meet people where they're at.

1:29:44And I think if you, you know, you work hard, I have deeply held beliefs that I'm going to fight for, as we've talked about. But that doesn't mean you have to be an asshole along the way to everybody. No, you don't. That's not me. So I'm just trying to be as effective as I can for the cause. Is the Republican Party changing under Trump? Yeah, I believe so. I mean, I think you look at the people who've been elected since, say, 2018-ish, right? The Senate is meant to be, you know, a third of the Senate is up every two years. and the entire House of Representatives can turn over in two years, theoretically, right?

1:30:19The Senate is designed to be that way. But I do think it's changing. I think President Trump, I think one of his great contributions to the Republican Party is that it has given people the confidence to fight. I think that that's a good thing. I think that's right. Right? Because I think that no longer can we deny that we're up against some benign force out there. I mean, there are people on the other side that have a very different vision of this country than we do. And you better stand up and fight for it. And I think he's given us great cause to do it. I mean, you just look at this comeback and it's just sort of like, it's historically, I mean, we're living in a very historic moment.

1:31:01We're talking about it in real time. But when people look back, I mean, he was in office, out of office, came back. That's only happened one time. Nobody alive now has ever seen that. Came back and against a backdrop of people trying to throw him in jail, bankrupt him and assassinate him. And he's back. And I think the difference now, I wasn't there in the first term, but there is a definite recognition and recognition even of some who don't, who aren't as aligned as I am with President Trump, that he earned it and that his policy agenda and his nominees should get a fair shake. I don't know if that was true the first time.

1:31:33I don't think it was true the first time. No. But the Senate is changing. And I think there's an, you know, take foreign policy perspective. I think there's an ascending view that I subscribe to, which is sort of American realism. It's much more restrained diplomacy. If you have to move on something that's a legitimate threat to your core national interest, you do it swiftly, decisively. But this kind of meandering foreign policy where you can be everywhere all at once, all the time that sort of predated the last decade, I think that's not the future. But it's still an ascending view. But I do think the Senate is changing.

1:32:07And I think President Trump has sort of led the way on that. And I think just look at the conversation we're having now about trade. A lot of these things that were, you know, after the Cold War ended and Soviet communism was defeated in that way, there was never really an adjustment. Like in many ways, Europe and Japan, we allowed them to get back up on their feet, whether it was protection through NATO or these disastrous trade deals. But they had a purpose at the time was for them to get up and be able to stand up on their own two feet. Well, that time is over. I mean, in many ways, right? Like we shouldn't have ridiculous trade deals.

1:32:44So President Trump wielding tariffs to get a better deal. That's working. We're getting record investment, trillions of dollars in this country. And then also, you know, look at NATO now. Like they're actually like, we'll see if they actually do it. But one of the reasons why I went to the Munich Security Conference, I don't have the same foreign policy view of most people that go there, but I wanted to tell them the truth, not what they wanted to hear. I think so many like the adulation and the red carpet that gets rolled out and you're treated as American, whatever, over there, hero to some, like that wasn't my purpose.

1:33:14I wanted them to understand that there's a shift happening. We are pivoting. We're gonna protect the homeland. We understand China, the 21st century is gonna be defined by this great competition with communist China. We have to win that fight and you need to stand up on your own two feet much more than you ever have before. And I think it's important that more people deliver that message. So I do think that's part of the transformation of the Republican Party right now. And also rooted, and I'm very comfortable in this place now because I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. My dad worked seven days a week in the midnight shift.

1:33:41This ability to connect with working people, to fight for them, not the corporate interests, but the people who are working hard, who just want their kids to have a better life than them. They've been vilified for so long. They've been looked over in so-called flyover country for too long. Their time is now. And I think President Trump has a very unique way of connecting. And as I said earlier, I think what people want right now more than anything is authentic leadership. And so it's an incredible time to be there. And I think this is where it's headed. And I'm just grateful to be a part of it.

1:34:13As honestly or sort of impartially or non-emotionally as you can, can you describe where you think the Democratic Party is going? I don't think they've hit rock bottom yet, actually. I think that you look at the people that are filling up the arenas. It's Bernie Sanders. It's AOC. It's this Mondami guy who's literally a communist running. he's going to be the mayor of New York, probably. Looks that way. So I think they're still searching. They don't have a message. They don't have a messenger. They're still obsessed with President Trump, with Trump derangement syndrome. They've sort of learned nothing from the last go around with all this.

1:34:52And, you know, just things that used to be, I mean, there used to be kind of a, by the way, a Washington consensus isn't always, it's usually a bad thing. but there used to be kind of a belief that borders were important yeah I don't think they believe that anymore I think if you really press the rank and file Democrat in Congress it's it's they believe in mass migration they don't think that lines on a map they think that lines on a map are arbitrary they'll never win with that right I know and I don't think they'll get away from it so I think you saw some self-reflection after the election but they're falling back into the same mass migration has made everyone's life worse in this country it has And I think that you look at the Overton window on that now versus 10 years ago when President Trump came down the escalator.

1:35:39Yeah. It's pretty dramatic. It is dramatic. In a good way, right? So I think that oftentimes we get caught up in the daily news cycle. What is the thing of the day? But if we take a step back and we look at how the Republican Party has been transformed, how the country has sort of woken up from this fever dream. I talk a lot about in the book. Like, I think that's all positive. Yes. There's more work to do, but I'm optimistic. I agree. I think that's wise. You're taking a bigger view of it. And a lot has changed a lot and it's good. Here's my warm - And by the way, real quick, the other thing that's different, when I was growing up, it was in college in the 90s, this political correctness thing was sort of beginning.

1:36:20And I saw it and sometimes I would take classes knowing that I would, I was even a contrarian back then because I loved a good debate and I've always been pretty conservative. I always was a little jealous of liberals in that they kind of had the high ground on free speech. Oh, yeah. You know, they were right. And I'm glad now and particularly proud of the work, as you know, we're talking about in the book of, I think we have taken that mantle now. They've abandoned it. They don't believe in it anymore. It's all about power and control. and I think if we maintain this path of fighting for people's right to say things even if you don't agree with them is a very important thing for us to maintain the connection with this new coalition that's been created in the Republican Party.

1:37:07I agree. The number of people who believe that on either side is really small because speech is of course a threat to the people in power no matter what side they're on. That's why liberals went from being big donors to the ACLU to controlling Facebook. So, because they took power. So, like, nobody wants to be challenged, I think. Only the truly principled, I think, you're in the group, are willing to accept challenge to their power, you know, without trying to shut people up. My concern is that Mamdani, who I think is a, you know, I don't think much of him. However, I think his main appeal may be quality of life worries that people have.

1:37:49And I'm, do you think, I know this has been a big issue for you, but there aren't that many of you actually in the Senate talking about people's lives. Like somebody in power needs to address declining quality of life in this country or else there'll be a lot more mom Donnies. Yeah, I agree with that. And, you know, I think especially for young people who are, you know, they're coming out of college with a lot of debt. they don't, you know, they may not be able to afford a house or have a family, you know, the way things are tracking until they're in their thirties somehow. That's a very different America.

1:38:26Not a better one. No, I agree with that. And I think part of it is understanding the moment that we're in. And you think about, you know, the ability to have a one income family and like that, very difficult to imagine now for a lot of people. And people can choose to do it or not do it, but you ought to be able to have the option. I think a lot of opportunity hopefully will come for bringing manufacturing back. There are twice as many people that work in government than have manufacturing jobs in this country. I think the number was 90 ,000 factories have left the United States since NAFTA. Yeah.

1:39:02Like that's dramatic. And I think that - So Perot was right. There was a giant sucking sound. And by the way, what's interesting about Missouri, you know, I'm in Maine with you. Maine and Missouri have a connection because the Missouri compromise, of course. Missouri and Maine came in at the same time, although Missouri took a little bit longer. And on the state seal, there's a belt buckle that holds the seal together. And it was basically telling the federal government that we retain our independence and we may leave because you're screwing us over. So like we would unbuckle the buckle. And not that I'm not advocating for that.

1:39:35I'm just saying even back then - 40 years later, they found out no one's allowed to leave. Right, right, right. But like, no, but the point is, it's like this, even back then, Missourians were skeptical of a government telling them how to live their lives a thousand miles away. So I think that it's important for us to kind of forge this path where we are providing more opportunity for people. But Missouri's always had this kind of independent streak. If you look at the states where Perot did particularly well, it was in a place like Missouri. pap you can and only somebody that i listened to growing up and when i was my dad i said my dad worked seven days a week in the midnight shift it also meant that he was home like after school so he could like go to my games and played a lot of sports or we would watch crossfire on the one television when you had one television living room and i would watch jack kemp and pap you can and kind of thundering away and they were fighting for the little guy oh yeah they were fighting for little guy and you had ron reagan you know of course then trying to build this coalition too So anyway, the punchline is Perot was right.

1:40:35This giant sucking sound was real. Letting China into the World Trade Organization was a huge disaster. But it doesn't need to be that way. And I think that's the hope with advanced manufacturing that we can bring those jobs home. It won't look the same as the 1960s. It won't be an assembly line in Detroit in that way. But you just think of, I just think people are looking for more opportunities. And I think the people that I grew up around, their parents were truck drivers or cops or factory workers. And I didn't know any lawyers growing up, not one. And, but I thought the law gave structure, which kind of, and people, real people, normal people to pursue their dreams, whatever that was, which is why that's what I pursued.

1:41:17But the people I grew up around, they got dealt this double whammy, which was their jobs went overseas. And then as they're looking for new jobs, those wages get undercut through illegal immigration and mass migration. So it's no wonder people are looking for something different. And we better be the ones that provide that. And I think that we're on the right track. But, you know, there are warning signals out there that we better be the ones with the solutions. because Mondami is kind of a kook and a commie, but maybe there'll be somebody smarter than him. Yeah, it's the biggest city in the country.

1:41:52So last question about that. I know you're probably not going to drinks with Democrats every night or anything, but are there any Democratic members of the House or Senate who you're pretty sure are going to run for president? Because of course, wide open on the other side. Oh yeah, you can look at the theatrics right now. The ones that are stomping on the floor a little bit more. Or I think, you know, Cory Booker is making some moves. Actually? I think. I mean, if you're Chris Murphy. Really? Yeah. So, and look, I think in many ways. So we're safe. Right. I think in many ways, though, it is a competition to be the greatest resistor.

1:42:33That's what's going on right now. Yeah. And I don't think that's right. That's such a dead end. I know, but they think it is. and it's also why like you know some of these nominations which are you know i think the last time we had to vote like roll call vote on the ambassador to uruguay was like 50 years ago but we're doing all that now because the democrats view this sort of obstruction as the path and i don't think that uruguay is like a more important ally than it was 50 years ago that's not why we're voting the stakes aren't higher in uruguay right yeah so i think that there's uh in chuck schumer by the way i don't know that he runs again uh in two years um but he hears the footsteps of aoc oh of aoc so that's that's where the party's going they're terrified of that they're terrified of it because where the energy is um on their side and and by the way that's that's good news for us because it's just crazy stuff it's the same old you know you know race essentialism and control and it just, you know, this green New Deal nonsense that would last forever.

1:43:37If you had a modern Democrat, which is to say an old-fashioned Democrat. Harry Truman, maybe? Yeah, no, but that's exactly right. Or the earlier version of Dick Gephardt from your state. Yeah, sure. The, you know, pro-life, pro-labor, like that guy could win, I think. They've all been run out. This is a good example, actually, in Missouri. So Missouri was this ultimate bellwether state for a hundred years and picked the right, or the pick the winner, I should say, every time but once. Yes. Adlai Stevenson, the only exception. It was a great bellwether. There were rural Democrats everywhere, everywhere.

1:44:08In fact, most of outstate Missouri was blue with pro-life, pro-gun Democrats. They're all gone. They're literally all gone. Pro-gun, pro-labor. Yeah, that too. And you can't find them anywhere in Missouri. They're just in St. Louis and Kansas City and they're pretty radical. They're competing to be the most, like during COVID, like you had the mayor of St. Louis, the mayor of Kansas City competing to be the most woke COVID restrictor in the country. Like that was the competition, right? So the incentive structure is really messed up for them right now because the only way you do it is if you're one of the lefties.

1:44:39Everyone hates that stuff. Yeah, but in their circle, again, I think this is the, you know, the Trump derangement syndrome stuff. It's so hard for them to get rid of. Do donors push that on them? Oh, yeah. I think that they're, I mean, Soros, what Soros has funded, they chase that. Look at the prosecutors that did all the damage across the country. You know, you talk about an arbitrage of the system. Very little money went to disrupting a lot of our lives. So, yeah, but I think, but now in Missouri, there's literally no Democrat representing rural Missouri. And the margins, like in my last race in some of the counties, say in the boot heels, like you get 86 % of the vote.

1:45:16Really? What were your numbers in St. Louis and Kansas City? Well, I'm from the St. Louis area. So like in St. Louis County, which is where I live, I've been more effective of kind of holding the line. But in St. Louis City, it's 80-20, you're going to lose. But the city itself is 300 ,000. The metro area is 3 million. But St. Louis County has a million people. And you just basically hold on as much as you can, appeal to people. And then you're running up the score everywhere else in a dramatic way. It used to be the dynamic was they did much better in rural Missouri. and then they get into the cities and then that's what would get them over the top at midnight by, you know, a certain number of votes.

1:45:56Boy, that pattern you just described is everywhere. Everywhere, yeah. Does that stay the same for a while? I think so for a while. I warn people all the time that nothing is static. I think that's the dynamic that we're in, at least for right now. And like I said, I don't think, I don't know how to gauge the midterms, Tucker. Like I don't know the house races as much and the redistricting thing is going to have a play. But the one thing that's true is the Democrats have gerrymandered these seats for a long time. They've got nowhere else to go. So like, and by the way, the idea that you don't have to be a citizen to be counted in the census is insane.

1:46:32California would lose seats, no doubt. Can that be fixed? Yeah, it could be. You could ask the question on the census and only that would be counted then in the next census cycle. Now there would be legal challenges to that. But I think you can do that. And by the way, it has enormous impact on like federal dollars and how they're doled out. But I think if the redistricting will affect the numbers. So I don't know about the midterms. I have confidence that that that will hold the House. The Senate will remain in Republican hands. There's just not that many seats that are in like battleground territory.

1:47:05But longer term, I think we're in a strong position, but we're also going to have to be very mindful, which I love that we've got this new coalition. That's kind of, I joked when I spoke at the convention last year that you had Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan, and normal people on the stage. This is exactly the party that I've been waiting for my whole life. And we've got it. And so I want to work as hard as I can to help. You just don't want the party of Bill Gates to steal economic populism from you. Correct. That's when you lose. Yeah. No. And some people will be smart enough to understand it. I think, again, you notice how like Beto O 'Rourke and all these guys are like cussing more often.

1:47:42And it's like, it's like, if you can be like, it's like faking authenticity. I know. It's ridiculous. I'd love to talk to Beto's wife. I haven't never met her, but I wonder if she's impressed because I bet she's not. I bet she thinks it's phony as hell. I bet she really does. I bet nobody has more. I'm just guessing. I've never talked to Mrs. O 'Rourke and I doubt her name is Mrs. O 'Rourke, but she's got another name because she's so embarrassed. But I bet she's more contemptuous of him than anything. Yeah, so I think they've, again, I don't think they've fleshed all this out yet. And I think they're in a real troublesome spot, right?

1:48:17You've got this kind of Star Wars bar of leftists that they can't get out of the room. And it's pushing everybody to the left. And I think people will reject that. So there was no moment, because remember, for the month after the election, there were Democrats, including Gavin Newsom, who were like, really, this isn't working for us and we should try something new. That never went anywhere. No, I mean, Rahm Emanuel is kind of talking that way as a diagnosis, but in order to get the nomination, that post-mortem assessment will get you nowhere because I don't think their base wants to hear that.

1:48:53I think that's right. Their base wants them to fight over everything right now. That's not where the American people are. That's the good news, right? Because Trump got a mandate. He got the population. And do you see that in the Senate? Yeah. Oof. And for that place to operate with 60 votes, that's a different environment, right? We're dealing with, and by the way, been very successful, I think, of the three stages so far, which is getting Trump's team in place, his cabinet. We've added a thousand on that. Reconciliation, which by the way, not a lot of people, they talked about the one big beautiful bill, the name.

1:49:31But like you've got for the first time school choice provisions in there. More for working families with 529s to save. You've got no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. For the truck driver that's working overtime or the waitress that's working two shifts, like that's a big deal. Like that is now there's other stuff in there. But you front loaded money for border, like for deportations, more ICE agents in beds. Like that's all in there. You front loaded a lot of that. So there's a lot of wins there. And then we get to rescissions, which I handled. And that was, you know, probably more difficult than it should have been.

1:50:03But we got it done. Those are the three big things so far. So there's more to do. But I think we could do all that with 51 votes, right, because of just the way the statutes are drafted. But if the Democrats are really in this mode of resistance, it's going to be, you know, who knows how this all plays out. Because right now, Chuck Schumer doesn't see an incentive of working with Republicans on anything. And I think that ultimately burns them. I mean, Trump after the midterm is, you know, can't run again. So at that point, if the Democrats' message is we hate Trump, does that get you the presidency?

1:50:39No, I think it's a, I think you're right. It's a midterm play, but they have long-term problems because that has defined their party. And in many ways, this lawfare that was exhibited was all just a symptom of the same problem, right? It is they're singularly obsessed with President Trump. And every policy position he takes, they take the opposite. Again, try to throw him in jail, censor anybody who believes the same thing he believes. So they have a real problem. It's a structural problem that I don't, it's easy to diagnose. I don't know how they fix it because there are no Dick Gephardts walking around.

1:51:15Right. Or Bill Clinton. Yeah. You know. Right. Senator, thank you very much for spending all this time. The book is The Last Line of Defense, How to Beat the Left in Court, which you have done. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

1:51:51We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.